A Great Pile of Kelp!

Growing a Garden in Eastern Canadian by the Seaside has lots of challenges. Yup LOTS.

Combine a really short growing season, some truly wild weather, regular doses of burning salt-water spray, marshy and seriously acidic topsoil and let’s not forget the very serious level of wind and you have a Garden that could easily be voted “Least likely to succeed”.

On the other hand growing vegetables right by the sea does provide one rather nifty and most welcome gift… Kelp! Literally tonnes and tonnes of fresh briny Kelp. A seemingly unending supply of lovely fresh Seaweed. Very nice indeed.

A really good howl chugging in from the East brings up massive amounts of brown and briny Kelp that piles up on the beaches of our little cove.

This is really good stuff. Really. Great. Stuff. We spread fresh Kelp as a soil hugging mulch. It is also a rich source of nutrients and a pretty terrific soil conditioner.

Lugging Kelp is also pretty marvellous exercise. There is really no need for a gym membership or a jogging habit when you have a sizeable Garden to feed. Piles of ferny Kelp makes deep mulch to protect the Garden beds as they sleep. Lovely.

The very next day this fluffy stuff stuff down there landed. Snow does throw a bit of a wrench into our “prepare the Garden” works.

Oh well. Here’s hoping for an early Spring thaw…In all honesty it is kind of nice when the weather forces you to stay inside with some hot tea and a basket of yarn. The white stuff provides an awfully pretty view out this back window too. Yup.